SEO and publicity through press releases?

Hi Dave. I’m working on some publicity for my little company and have just learned about the importance of search engine optimization. My Mom tells me, however, that visibility comes through press releases, but I have a sense she’s hopelessly old school. What’s your take on this?

I think you and your Mom are both spot-on, actually. How’s that for a diplomatic answer? Actually, I asked my friend and colleague Doyle Albee of Metgzer Associates about this: he’s a new media savvy public relations guy. Here’s what he shared with me…
Actually, Dave, news releases can provide some of the best search engine optimization (SEO) for your Web site or blog – and in many cases, distribution is free.
To explain, let me back up a step. News releases (or press releases) were once printed documents that were mailed from a company or a company’s public relations agency to members of the media. They were sometimes reprinted verbatim (typically in smaller publications) or often rewritten or used as fact sheets to generate a story or announcement in a news outlet.
Today, news releases are generally distributed electronically and often appear on a number of consumer facing Web sites, like Google News or Yahoo! Finance. The larger and more established distribution services – Business Wire and PR Newswire, for example – also have contracts with many major media outlets to run appropriate news releases on designated areas of their Web sites.
As a result, a news release with a business angle may very well be reprinted on Web sites like Forbes.com. While it’s important not to confuse a news release reprint with an article in Forbes, or even an editorial piece on the Web site itself, it’s still a nice placement for your news release, and it certainly helps with SEO.
Because of this direct placement, I believe there are now two kinds of news releases: those sent to members of the media, and those that are used only for SEO purposes. Here’s how they break out.
Let’s say I have a client that is ready to release a new piece of software with a potentially significant market – that’s newsworthy and falls into the first category. I should develop a news release, send it via an established distribution service (like those mentioned above) and contact appropriate reporters, editors and bloggers directly about writing a story (make sure your pitch is good – see some of Dave’s blog entries about that!). But I’m not done. I should also put that release on all the free distribution services I can. To find options, just search for “free press release distribution”. Reporters, for the most part, don’t look at these services regularly, but the search engines do. One good news release could easily get you 20 or more valuable incoming links to your blog or Web site.
There’s an added benefit: when a prospect searches for you, they’ll find all those hits generated from your news releases, and that’s looks very good for you.
The second kind of release – those used only for SEO – is only sent to the free services. These releases simply have limited news value – perhaps my client got a new receptionist or upgraded their Web site. While those activities might be important to my client, they’re not the kinds of things that typically end up on the front page of the business section. However, if you’ve got a good key word strategy and have used them in a release telling about minor news, they can provide great SEO.
Send these kinds of releases to the free distribution services only (and put them in your online press room – I’ll be writing more about that on my blog shortly). It’s a nearly free tactic (requiring your time only) that will provide you with some solid links to your site or blog, and will also allow those that search for you to see the information about your organization that you want them to see.

Nice job with that answer, Doyle Thanks. Here’s a bit more about him too: Doyle Albee is president of Metzger Associates, a full-service media relations firm in Boulder, Colo. He founded the New Media Practice at Metzger nearly four years ago and writes at metzgerblog.com.

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I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by
buying you a cup of coffee!

2 comments on “SEO and publicity through press releases?”

Hi, Just came across this article and Dave’s website (now bookmarked!) — I would like to take note that I issued a press release on an item of mine several years ago and not only did this release get picked up; I still gain traffic from it! So I feel the use of news releases are a great way to gain publicity and paying traffic. The item mentioned in the news release sold out after about a year or so and that little news release still gains me traffic on my other product offerings. New releases do work!
Sincerely,
Ms. Blake Cahoon

I’ve been wondering about the SEO value of press releases for a while now. Whilst I think it’s true that a press releases submitted to a number of free press sites will result the article being spread around – and presumably some inbound links from the press release text – I’m not convinced that the search engines will give these links much value?
Surely they will treat these in a similar fashion to link-farms of old and forums in that they know a site owner can easily generate inbound links to their own site and thus not place much value on them?
Also, I think it’s fair to say that the majority of the sites that pick up free press releases are low ranking sites that have mostly auto-generated content and not much value in search engines’ eyes?

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